What would another dog walker think of the scene? A raven, simply black against a background of white mountains, sings a croaky song from on top of a busted pier piling. I kneel on the sand before the raven, lifting my camera as if an offering. Little Aki sits by my side, watching the big black bird.
Aki and I are in the rain, walking along the edge of Mendenhall Lake near Skater’s Cabin. Mobile clouds shift back and forth in front of the glacier and Mt. McGinnis. I imagine a mini-writing retreat in the cabin. The rain would keep everyone for the required solitude. I could build a fire, write on the laptop, watch the glacier muscle through the clouds.
A monster high tide covers the beach on which Aki usually charges after her Frisbee. We stay in the bordering old growth forest where she runs into a couple of dog friends. At first they are all fun and excitement. Then one of the dogs, a springer spaniel, grabs the Frisbee and a fight breaks out. This is a side of Aki we never see and it shocks me and the little dog’s other human. After the snarling fight ends the dogs act like nothing happened. It is harder for her people to shrug off. She is such a sweet little dog.
Rain and slick-ice trails must be keeping everyone else out of the Gold Creek valley. Aki doesn’t appear to notice the solitude. For a dog with sensitive nose and an inquisitive nature like her, this mid-winter thaw is magic—as stimulating as Disneyland or an overturned meat truck. Nose impaired and cocooned in waterproofs against the rain, I look inward, rather than out today.
We cross a young forest growing over the rubble of hydraulic mining. A century ago, I couldn’t walk over the wasteland created here by men moiling for gold. The old growth forest they destroyed fed hunters and gathers and offered a peaceful place for the rest. But the gold extraction efforts that destroyed it provided jobs for the people in the nescient Juneau town. Without them, there would be no Juneau. Without them, I might still be living in California. I guess I owe them a debt but refuse to share responsibility for their destructive acts.
We didn’t see anyone else on this mornings walk across Gastineau Meadow. The slick ice that covers the access road must have discouraged other trail users. Aki had no problem on the ice. Her nails gave good purchase. My new grippers worked as well.
There was still a lot of snow on the meadows but some of it may melt during the forecasted rainstorm. We followed a snowshoe trail covered with hoar frost feathers and the tracks of wild animals going about their business. For some reason, superstition maybe, I avoid stepping on the tracks of a deer that recently walked down the trail. A young Sitka black tail who just survived her first hunting season made them. I stopped at the meadow’s edge where her tracks led into the forest. If she moved, Aki would have barked. But she didn’t panic. Held her ground. Maybe she and her future fawns will make it through a few more hunting seasons.
The thought of seeing a whole meadow sparkling in frost feathers got me out of the door before first light so we could arrive at Kowee Meadows in time for the show. Frost and sunshine can turn the dullest clump of alders into a crystal fantasia. Aki and I picked up a mutual friend on the way, someone I have known for forty years. Aki loves him as a hiking companion and a carrier of cheese, which he has been know to share with the little dog.
The trail first crosses a small muskeg with the usual assortment of living and dead pines and then drops into swampy woods. We brought snowshoes but found them useless on the hard packed, icy trail. Through thin woods we could see the meadow turning pink with sunrise but were forced to remain in the dark woods by a barrier of partially frozen wetlands. Aki dashed back and force between her human charges as I walked slowly, head down, to avoid a tumble onto the icy trail. My frustration grew as the sun climbed high enough to throw long shadows on bright-white meadow snow.
The trail led us onto Kowee Meadow just as full sun turned frost feathers on the trailside alders into tiny prisms. I forgot all my frustrations and just enjoyed the bright meadow that appeared to run all the way to the base of Lion Mountain. We found the trail made by a skier during the last thaw that would keep us out of the trees on the return hike to the trailhead. Except where the trail crossed newly refrozen watercourses, we could relax and enjoy sunlight streaming through the frost-covered alders we passed between—A rich way for rain forest dwellers to consume this rare day of winter light.
After living over twenty-five years in the rain forest, I’ve learned to appreciate Payne’s gray skies, fog, and even dark, wet nights. But watching the sunrise above a fogbank down channel makes me wonder why we are not all sun worshipers. It’s like eating candy at the end of a Lenten fast. But, if this clear spell holds for more than a few days we will turn grumpy until a storm rolls in off the Pacific to bring back the gray.
Aki and I have taken this walk down Fish Creek so many times that this morning, I might have left the camera behind if not for the sun. It surprised me by climbing above the low fog covering Gastineau Channel and into a cloud-free sky. There is also the tide, a 15-foot high that crests as we pull into the trailhead parking lot. On this windless morning, the resulting flood turns Fritz Cove into a giant mirror that reflects the glacier and its mountain escorts.
Ironically, the little dog and I will spend the entire walk in a dusky grey. If we could fly above the mountains or swim across the cove, we’d be warmed by the sun. But grounded in the lee of the Douglas Island ridge, we just shiver in the shade.
This afternoon, I stopped on the way to moraine to photograph the sun—the tiny sliver of it that shone between a Douglas Island ridge and cloud cover. Aki, who had waited all morning for an adventure, was not pleased. I stopped anyway. Shy this time of year, the sun may not reappear until the middle of next week.
On the moraine we see the sun’s reflected beauty bouncing off McGinnis and the other glacial mountains. But it is light filtered through dissipating fog. Near the beaver village, Aki trots onto lake ice made opaque by refrozen snow. Worried that it is too weak to hold up the little dog, I call her back. She gives me that “What’s your problem” look and takes station behind me so I can break a trail for her through the soft, wet snow.
This morning, while Aki and I walk along a North Douglas Island beach, I am surprised that we had the place to ourselves. Strong gusts rip dark-green strips across an ocean’s surface already pounded by rain. We disturb a raft of mallards that move reluctantly away from the beach. It’s too dark, cold, and wet to get out the camera but I do and snap a few shots of the islands in Lynn Canal, their outlines softened by the storm. Back in the forest, I take a picture of bare alders reflected in a panel of melting pond ice. Even mid-storm the camera finds some beauty.
Walking with Aki 